Analysts and journalists: A case of tainted love?

Ever wonder why you see particular IT industry analysts quoted again and again on the pages of silicon.com and other publications?

Analysts remain a major port of call for IT journalists looking for expert comment. According to a survey of 97 leading hacks by public relations agency Hotwire PR, 64 per cent of respondents said they make the effort to contact an analyst.

But the independence of these experts is called into question when the PR company handling a particular story suggests journalists talk to a specific individual in the analyst community. And it seems this practice may be denting the credibility of the analyst community.

Hotwire's research identified a "growing level of cynicism" among reporters. It's not just that they prefer real-world customer feedback - 54 per cent said that tops their list as opposed to 23 per cent for analyst comment. It's more that they're suspicious of the motives of the analysts.

"Analyst input is not sought at all cost and must be within the right context," a Hotwire statement says.

Tellingly, many journalists positively shy away from being set up with analysts named by the PR machine. Thirty-seven per cent of the respondents said they would not contact an analyst if suggested by a vendor. They prefer to know who covers what technologies and issues and find them directly.

Hotwire suggests the tainting of the image of star Wall Street analysts such as Morgan Stanley's Mary Meeker, Merrill Lynch's Henry Blodgett and Salomon Smith Barney's Jack Grubman - now under federal investigation - as a reason for industry analysts being held in comparatively low esteem these days.

"That's a different ball game, one with definite conflict of interest issues," Dale Kutnick, Meta Group founder and co-research director, told silicon.com. "Some analyst firms, people like Jupiter and Forrester, did get too carried away [during the late 1990s boom]. It seemed like they were predicting every 'e' market would be worth a trillion dollars in five years."

However, Kutnick pointed out that most industry analysts, including Meta, take only a small percentage of their overall revenues, typically less than two per cent, from single vendors.

So who are IT journalists turning to? The usual suspects, it seems. According to the survey, the top five analyst houses UK journalists look for, in reverse order, are: Yankee Group, Forrester, Ovum, IDC and, ahead by some distance, Gartner Group - even if the latter is infamous for not always being the easiest to reach.